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File photo -- Joyce Guthrie, right, stands underneath the Palatka Daily News’ tent at the 2022 Blue Crab Festival.
Today marks 50 years since the head of Palatka Daily News’ Human Resources Department began making history at the newspaper.
Joyce Guthrie, 69, started her career at just 19 years old and worked for $1.85 an hour, she said. And all these years later, she isn’t ready to stop.
“My dad raised us to be self-sufficient, have good jobs, be a contributor to society and an upstanding citizen,” Guthrie said. “I can’t imagine not working.”
Guthrie has worked a variety of jobs for the Daily News. She started in the Classified Advertising Department. In the first year she worked at the newspaper, she was featured in an ad that advised people to place an ad with her for a $2 rate.
After working in classifieds, she moved to bookkeeping, became the newspaper’s benefits coordinator and assumed the role of business office manager, Guthrie said.
She trained other employees when the newspaper received its first computers and worked on the renovation of the Daily News’ building that opened in the mid-1980s – the one still in use today.
“It’s just been one project after another,” Guthrie said.
Not only has she made an impact on the newspaper, but she’s also been involved in the community for more than 50 years. Guthrie, who graduated from Palatka South High School, loved to play softball, play travel ball and coach the younger generation of softball players in her free time.
She likes to attend church in Green Cove Springs, where she sings in the choir. She stays active with her family, especially her five grandchildren.
The Daily News staff and Guthrie’s family will be celebrating her decades of hard work at the newspaper later this week.
“I am thrilled and overjoyed to celebrate this tremendous accomplishment with her and her family,” said Jennifer Moates, the publisher of the Daily News.
Not everything in her 50 years at the paper has been worth celebrating. Guthrie remembers some of the darkest events she experienced with the Daily News team, whom she considers a second family.
The most memorable pieces of history for her, she said, were the Challenger Explosion on Jan. 28, 1986, and the Sept. 11 attacks.
“We came in that morning when the second plane hit the tower and we were actually watching that in the newsroom,” she said. “We watched the plane hit it.”
Guthrie’s also seen plenty of noteworthy events, transitions and changes in the newspaper world, such as downsizing, technology upgrades and plenty of new faces. Guthrie said she has worked with seven publishers since her hire in 1973.
Moates called Guthrie an integral and vital part of the Daily News.
“Simply put, we couldn’t do it without her,” Moates stated. “Her loyalty and hard work are unmatched in a time when those virtues can be hard to find.”
Guthrie said the Daily News embodies a family atmosphere – quite literally. Her mother-in-law, two sisters and two nieces have worked at the paper during her 50 years at the Daily News.
Any business that has a family mentality, like the Daily News, needs to make sure everyone works well together, she said.
“We’ve learned, as time grows and things change, (family is) what kind of holds us together,” Guthrie said. “We’ve survived (the changes) and keep moving forward.”
